Power on the Zotac and access to UEFI by pressing SUPPR key at boot time

Go in screen "Chipset"

Set UMA at 1G (default is 256M, see Note above for more details)

Save and reset.

Note: If you have enough Memory (let's beginning with 2GB), then setting UMA at 1GB is recommended to avoid any playback issue.Still you can try with 512MB and update to 1GB in case of trouble.See Peter's comments. (thanks to him!)

Step 2: Install Openelec

Step 2.1: Standard installation with media installator

Use this method if you don't plan to have multiboot on same device, with an other Linux installation as for example.

If you plan to have multiboot, go to "Step 2.2: Manual alternative method (Multiboot)

Look for the section "FUSION Builds' and download the last version, i recommend you to use the last version even if still considered as Beta.

Note: You have to choose between PVR version and non PVR version, if you want to know the difference, PVR means Personal Video Recorder and is used to access to Live TV systems.
Even if you don't have any PVR, choosing the version with PVR won't change anything, so don't worry too much.

Openelec is provided as a Bz2 compressed Tar archive, on Linux desktop environments, you can easily extract here with a right click / Extract Here, or use the command line in Terminal:

$ tar -xjf OpenELEC_PVR-Fusion*.tar.bz2

For windows Users, i recommend you to download and install 7zip (freeware), it will be able to extract files with no issues.

2. Create your USB installation key

For Linux Users:

Insert your USB Key and go to the extracted Directory, identify your device name. (you can use the "mount" command to do it, usually your USB key should /dev/sdb)

Note: You can also manually install OpenELEC if you plan to use it in Multiboot with other OS.
I won't cover it here.

Step 2.2: Manual alternative installation method (Multiboot)1. Install your system(s) and set your partitioning Use this installation method if you plan to have Multiboot.I recommend you to install first systems you are planning to use on same device, let enough space free on your internal Volume for 2 OpenELEC partitions. (which can be logical partitions and not primary)Partitioning example with an other Linux Installation (adapt to your needs or preferences):
Internal Volume is called "/dev/sda":

/dev/sda1: Main root ("/") partition for system 1

/dev/sda2: Logical main partition

/dev/sda5: Home ("/home") parttion for system 1

/dev/sda6: Swap partition for system 1

/dev/sda7: System partition for OpenELEC

/dev/sda8: Data partition for OpenELEC

When installation your first system, ensure to let enough space for your OpenELEC installation, the system partition does not requires much spaces. (256MB or 512MB will be largely enough)Requirement for Data partition depends on you, if you have enough space set something like 8GB.

I recommend to use "gparted" when your are running your first system to create required partitions for OpenELEC.

Thanks to his great work, you'll get a full operational Opera Web Browser ^^

Conclusion:

If you are looking for an XBMC Media Center Fusion solution working out the box within a few minutes, then OpenELEC is definitively the solution for you.

This is a very great work from OpenELEC guys!

Memorandum:

Traditional to configure your sound output using file "asound.conf":

Navigate with your computer inside your network. (Under Linux and Windows, navigate to Network)You should see a new host called "OPENELEC", go inside (no authentication required) and go to the share called "Configfiles"

Create a blank file called "asound.conf" and put the following content, depending on your choice:asound.conf:

First thing, if you don't already have one, i would recommend you to get a "Class 10" SDHC Card, XBMC will be much more powerful on such cards.

Off course, this will still works on any SDHC Class SD card.

Download Last OpenELEC Build for Raspberry Pi:

Edit 01/18/2013: Previous download locations are outdated, to get the very last Rpi OE version, please use the download link in main OpenELEC Website: (look for Raspberry Pi)http://openelec.tv/get-openelec/

Note: For Windows users, you may need an Archive Software such as 7zip to extract this archive

You will get a new directory "OpenELEC-RPi.arm-*", just go in this extracted directory to begin the creation of your SD-card.

If you are using Linux:

Real easy, just insert your Flash card into your card reader.
Your Flash card should identified as "/dev/sdb" (/dev/sda being your first drive), ensure this is the case (in case of you have more than one drive connected) using "mount" command.

Insert your Flash card and boot your Raspberry.
OpenELEC will boot within a few minutes and XBMC will open.

Set screen:

With no additional configuration, you may have some "fit to screen" issues, in XBMC UI and play back also.

If you have some issues, proceed as follows:

Depending on your TV/Screen and configuration, you may try 2 methods, one manipulating overscan values and one other with UI zoom tuning.Method 1: Set overscan - RECOMMENDEDNote a reboot is required.Also "overscan_scale" is an experimental set, test with and without.Try to set in your config.txt overscan settings (see Memorandum to learn how to update config.txt):Note: Adapt overscan position values to your TV/screen

Choose to activate the SSH daemon under the section Services, and reboot.

Step 4: Connect to your Raspberry Pi and setup config.txt

Identify the IP Address of your Raspberry Pi, to do so you can use XBMC system information.

In XBMC, Go to "parameters", then scroll down and go to "System Information".

Finally go to the Network panel to know your device IP Address:

Now that you know your IP Address, connect to your Raspberry;

Default password is: openelec

If you are on Linux:

Open a Terminal and go into SSH:

$ ssh root@XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX

If you are on Windows:

Download putty (freeware) and connect with SSH to your host

Setup your config.txt:

Edit 01/18/2013: config.txt coming with new builds now contain all required information to correctly set your main settings like Overcloking values, still information above are correct

*****************************************************************************************************************************************************************DISCLAIMER ABOUT OVERCLOCKING:

Overclocking is not officially supported by OpenELEC, if you do so this is at your own decision and own risk.
Overclocking feature may result in file system corruption, data losses, crashed or global instability.
OpenELEC developers won't give any warranty about those risks until a fix is officially supported.

Therefore, Overclocking on Raspberry Pi will not break your guarantee if you use the new Turbo Mode which is described bellow. (only setting overvoltage without dynamic frequency allocation would break your Raspberry's warranty)

Overclocking is still under work in OpenELEC and Raspberry Pi in general, this is an experimental feature and you should be prepared to restore your installation in case of trouble. (see section How to backup and restore)

Edit 09/23/2012: The Raspberry foundation introduced recently a new overclocking mode which sets on demand frequencies, you can now overclock your Raspberry Pi without breaking the guarantee.
Ensure to have the very last OpenELEC build!

Data Corruption:

Many people have data corruption and instability with higher overclocking modes, this seems to be related to high values of overvoltage.

For example, i have myself the case with a 8GB Class 4 that gets instantly corrupted when any overclock mode is set, where the same manufacturer Class 10 never got corrupted, still this is not related with class type SD card.

Anyway, you when your setup is done, see backup and restore section, this way if you have data corruption you could easily restore your flash card without re-installing.

Workaround : Set initial_turbo in config.txt

Edit 09/28/2012: If you have file system corruption with your settings, try to set:

It will force turbo mode after boot for the time set (max 60 secs) and should help preventing data corruption.

If even with this setting you still have Data corruption, try to comment "overvoltage=2" in Medium mode.

And if finally this still fails to work without file system corruption, i advise you to go back a more conservative overclocking mode which will work in most casse:

Conservative Overclocking mode:

arm_freq=850
gpu_freq=325
sdram_freq=425

If after all, you can't get any stable situation with overclocking mode enable, then simply disable it :-)
OpenElec works also very fine in default mode, moreover you should remember that higher CPU/GPU/Ram frequency does not change anything in playback quality ^^

I advise you to access to the share called "Userdata" using your File Browser and navigating to your Network and OpenELEC host.

Then, use any text editor (example Gedit for Linux and Notepad for Windows) and create a new file called "advancedsettings.xml" with the following content:Updated March 16, 2013: New advancedsettings.xml versionNote: This is new version of the advancedsettings.xml adapted to ARM processor like the RPi, if you have any issue with thumbnails quality due to the older file version, please delete your folder "~/.xbmc/userdata/Thumbnails", ensure you have the following advancedsetings.xml file and reboot The option "useddsfanart" must be set to false, explanation (thanks to Anonymous commentary):

"This settings allows XBMC to use your GPU rendering fanart and some other images. This will make loading images considerably faster, especially on systems with slower processors (e.g. Intel Atom based systems). Do not use this option on ARM based systems (Apple TV2/iOS/RPi/many Android systems) as it is likely to degrade performance because DDS images are not supported."

There is 2 possibilities, or you want a sound output through HDMI, or you will use your analogical connection through the jack connection provided.

In XBMC, go to parameters > sound configuration and set HDMI or analogical.

Also, if your TV does not take this in charge (or the sound system connected to your TV), ensure to unset sounds protocols.

Finally, please note that OpenELEC on Raspberry Pi does not uses ALSA for the sound ouput but OpenMixer (OMX), so don't try for now to use as far an example an external USB soundcard if you need an Optical connection, that won't be possible as for now...

Also, it will be much better to have a sound system able to decode DDS and so on, if you don't the CPU/GPU will have to downmix the sound, which causes more usage.
Some file could be hard to play for this reason.

Note: Without any DDS hardware support, you may issues with some MKV files, this is causes by software sound conversion using CPU required when your sound system does not support it.

Step 7: Setup XBMC and your Media Library

Now that your XBMC installation is ready to use, you need to configure your Media Library, and some few settings depending on your taste. (skins...)

I recommend you to take a look at other guides i wrote for XBMC, you will find fully applicable ways to manage your Library.

I would recommend to use it as client of an other main XBMC installation that will take care about managing the Media Library and sharing it through SMB or NFS with an automatically shared Database. (Mysql)Note about Mysql sharing: By the past i had some issues (missing videos) because of my XBMC master and slave version were using different versions of Mysql db (internal XBMC versions).Ensure you always have most up to date possible XBMC versions when sharing over Mysql to avoid these kind of issue.Consider your sharing Method:
If you are sharing your Media Files through your Network (from a NAS or share by another computer), you will probably wonder about the best way to set the Media Player.

Files shared from a Windows computer (even Windows Server) should be shared and accessed by XBMC using SMB protocol.

Files shared from an Unix / Linux Operating system should have better performances when accessed by NFS.

Therefore, in my configuration with all tests i've made, i noticed instability with NFS sharing mode, while SMB share were very stable, even shared from a Linux based system.
So, i would recommend SMB sharing in our configuration.
You don't have to mount your Network shares in your Raspberry Pi to act as a client, just browse when you add a Video source to the protocol of your choice, XBMC will care about that.

Step 8: Customize skin

By default XBMC is provided with Confluent skin.
In my opinion, in our configuration the UI works good enough to keep it.

Therefore, i would recommend to deactivate Fanart back screen to get better performances:

Edit 01/18/2013: With last OpenELEC builds, number of older themes are not available anymore under the main XBMC repository because they're not yet fully compatible with Frodo.Still some of theme now have dedicated Frodo version, like the Quartz theme i recommend for your Rpi.You can download it here:https://github.com/pecinko/quartz

Download the theme as a Zip file, then proceed to manual installation under XBMC extension manager inside Parameters.

Here are some themes known to work good on Raspberry Pi, my preference goes to "Quartz" which real fast and good looking:

Quartz

Rapier

SLIK

Xperience1080

Some Quarz screenshots on Raspberry Pi:

Step 9: Remote Control

CEC - Consumer Electronic ControlControlling XBMC using a remote control is in my opinion something primordial for any nice media center solution.If you are lucky, you have a quite recent TV which is CEC compatible :-)

Note: CEC stands for Consumer Electronics Control, a protocol built into HDMI that allows for one appliance to control another)Then the good news, The Raspberry hardware in addition with libcec included in OpenELEC is fully CEC compatible :-) You simply have nothing to do! Just plug and boot, very impressive.Your remote control will work out of the box, i've tested it several time and it works very very good!

Generic MCE Remote control

If you're less (lucky), then i recommend you to get a cheap MCE Remote that will work out of the box in OpenELEC and XBMC.

I've tested and validated to work out of the box on OpenELEC for Raspberry:

If you have any overclocking mode enabled, i recommend for now to temporarily deactivate overclocking while applying upgrade, if you don't you have many chances to break your system.

To do so:
- Rename /flash/config.txt to anything you want (eg. mv /flash/config.txt /flash/config.txt.off) - The goal is to deactivate Overclocking while we are updating
- Apply update as follow (copying SYSTEM* and KERNEL* to upgrade, reboot)

- When update is done (you have rebooted), rename config.txt to normal name to reactivate Overcloking

Edit 10/23/2012: You may be interested with the following script that allows to achieve update in terminal within an SSH sessions. (pay attention to overclock issues when upgraded as in the manual way)
See:https://github.com/xsteadfastx/rpi-openelec-upgrade

1. Download last version in your computer (See Step1 to get the proper URL)

2. Extract files

3. Connect to your Raspberry SMB share "Update" and copy files located in the directory "target" you previously extracted:

KERNEL and KERNEL.md5

SYSTEM and SYSTEM.md5

4. Finally reboot, the update process will automatically occur

Step 12: How to backup and restore

Your should consider about backing up your installation, the only element really required to be backed up is the main xbmc directory which contains all of your data.

I personally recommend the method using Partclone or dd. (Partclone will be faster but has some requirements)Partclone will require that partitions you want to restore from previously backed up have exactly the same size.Using the well known tool "dd", there is no requirements to restore but the operation requires more time as dd also considers blank spaces as data.Using tar to backup the main xbmc folder will also works but you may have to recreate your flash card (if you system is broken) and cover the system itself.

My Raspberry is connected trough the local Network and access to an XBMC Shared Library (Using SMB and Mysql), to be honest almost all videos 720p/1080p plays with no issues.

Therefore, Huge HD Video files will probably be difficult or impossible to play, you should avoid having files with a size bigger than 13-14 Gb... (when playing over your Network)

As a conclusion, i have to say that i am positively surprised by this small animal capacity, even if i would not change my main HTPC for a Raspberry Pi, this is very interesting and it makes a real good second XBMC client :-)

OpenELEC guys have done a real good job for this device, thank you!

Feel free to comment!

Memorandum:

How to update config.txt to set your Raspberry Pi parameters:

Log in to your Raspberry with ssh, and update your config.txt:

mount -o remount,rw /flash
vi /flash/config.txt

Official 5 Overclocking settings with New Turbo mode:

Don't set "force_turbo" to value "1", let the default value (0)

None

force_turbo=0

arm_freq=700
core_freq=250
sdram_freq=400
over_voltage=0

Modest

force_turbo=0

arm_freq=800
core_freq=300
sdram_freq=400
over_voltage=0

Medium

force_turbo=0

arm_freq=900
core_freq=333
sdram_freq=450
over_voltage=2

High

force_turbo=0

arm_freq=950
core_freq=450
sdram_freq=450
over_voltage=6

Turbo

turbo_mode=0

arm_freq=1000
core_freq=500
sdram_freq=500
over_voltage=6

How to check:

Check your kernel messages using the command "dmesg", you will see such messages which confirms the Turbo mode:

# Set stdv mode to PAL (as used in Europe)
sdtv_mode=2
# defines the aspect ratio for composite output (3 = 16:9)
sdtv_aspect=3
# Force the monitor to HDMI mode so that sound will be sent over HDMI cable
hdmi_drive=2
# Set monitor mode to DMT
hdmi_group=1
# Set monitor resolution to 1080p 50Hz
hdmi_mode=31
# Pretends HDMI hotplug signal is asserted so it appears a HDMI display is attached
hdmi_force_hotplug=1
# Make display smaller to stop text spilling off the screen
overscan_scale=1 # http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=67&t=15700
disable_overscan=1
overscan_left=57
overscan_right=59
overscan_top=37
overscan_bottom=37

- Fail to play back ISO of DVD and DVD files:
This depends on many factors (the way you created your iso files and so on), still playing back with success ISO of DVD including Menu and DVD files is not absolutely guarantee.

You could think about converting into MKV files which will play perfectly!